Shake, Rattle & Roll: Ride into the future

Your idea is big and hairy and it’s even on your blog or Facebook. But how do you make it real? Imagine if the lifestyle you design in your mind gets actualized most of the time. Of course life never happens the way you imagine it, sometimes it turns out better and sometimes it crashes and burns all around you. But it’s always worth a try.

In our case, imagination and reality meet on the spin bikes at Gold’s Gym a couple of times a week. At the start, my brother Eyal was very tentative. He checked his pulse frequently as he gets used to the idea of moving body parts, a pumping heart and beads of sweat. The mental scars of his heart attack are still apparent.

I glance over to his slow moving limbs and I wonder how is this training is going to translate to climbing hills in the Negev and all of a sudden magnitude of the challenge crashes on my parade.

Actually it gets even more daunting. My hairy idea of biking across Israel depends on others to make happen. That’s the worst kind of challenge as it requires inspiring others (aside from me) to do something they normally wouldn’t dream of.

Looking at my brother, who is spinning with a shoe that Willy Loman wore in Death of Salesman, I know that I have much more inspiring to do before he hops on one of these steel horses by his own choice.

But right now it’s February in snowy NY and the only place you can keep such a hairy idea alive is in a gym. So we spin at Gold’s.

Another trick I use to turn ideas into reality is to work backwards. Although the ride is more than eight months away, I registered the team and even booked the flights. In essence, I created the space for us on the ride and on the plane. This is called anchoring, or giving the idea a place to live. Everything in the universe needs a home even big hairy ideas. They will love you back if you feed them and give them a place to live.

With the idea, the structure and the routine laid out, all that remains is the doing. And blessed he who does what he says.

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About Ronen Yaari

I’m no guru and I don’t have hundreds of hours of certifications. All I can claim is that I did not squander the time that I was given so far.
I took care of my body from an early age and realized that a fit body was going to be the vehicle of choice to propel me around the planet to find what I was supposed to find.
I ran marathons, biked continents, climbed glaciers, walked across states, sailed oceans, explored reefs and floated myself over yoga mats. If the sun is down I’m a sleep and if it’s up I’m outside. My biggest accomplishment by far is creating a family that enjoys each other and puts up with me.